Except that with the 'dreams' that he sells, the rubber actually meets the road and goes from 0-60mph in 2.27 seconds, or puts real satellites in orbit and returns the booster to be re-used, or builds the world's largest scale Li-Ion battery factory to drive down costs...

Of course he's got some serious elements of self-promotion; it's required to build such a business. In his case, he manages to back it up in ways that most other self-promoters don't even begin to achieve.

(disclosure, I do own a bit of Tesla stock which has done nicely, also lost some with SolarCity, but didn't ride it all the way down to the buyout)